The Party Non-Invite

October 3, 2016

Warning: This is some high-school level, mean girls bullshit.

So there’s this chic, Jules. She moved back to Lafayette a year or so ago having spent time working for one of those secret federal agencies or something. She and Liz are friends. I met her a few times, went to a party at her house with Liz when she first bought it…..I never really connected with her. She seemed reserved and strange but then again so am I.

I tried to get to know her a few times. Saw her at Pamplona. We walked at the park together once. But like I said, it never really clicked.

So a few days ago, Amy said, “Are you going to Jules’ party on Saturday.”

“I wasn’t invited,” I said with a laugh.

“Well, it was a facebook invite.”

“Oh, we’re not facebook friends.” I said.

I looked her up to make the request, thinking that was the only reason I was excluded. I had already sent her a request. She had not accepted it.

Amy doesn’t like Jules so she thought it was strange that she would be included and not me. After all, I’m Liz’s best friend.

I joked about this with Liz, who had not mentioned the party before. She laughed with me. I threatened to have my own after-party, inviting the same people. I was full of shit of course.

I tried not to let it bother me. I mean, I don’t even use my real name on facebook. Maybe Jules doesn’t know who the request was from. But why didn’t Liz say anything about the party? It’s the kind of thing we used to go to together all the time. We were a duo. You never saw one without the other.

I felt like a toddler for even thinking these things and I could sense the depression monster, who had been gaining easy access to my soul, creeping around in my head, waiting for this morsel of self-doubt to feed on.

The morning after the party one of our friends, Larry posted something on a group message thread, “I hate all of you,” he said.

Amy texted, offering to tell me about the party over breakfast. Apparently Larry had been teased about a date with a weird Australian. Turns out…..everybody was there. Amy said it was obvious that I was missing. Liz got very drunk, embarrassing herself, throwing up and spending the night. Late in the evening, according to Amy, Erik finally shouted out, “Hey, where’s Marie?” until Larry shushed him, knowing something others didn’t.

The more I heard about the party, the more I got upset and felt ridiculous for being upset.

But this slight is in the context of a changing friendship with Liz. That’s the thing that’s upsetting me.

When I found out who had been there, I remembered that Liz had started hanging out with some of those people, excluding me where she had always included me. It was obvious. Over the past year or so, I’ve been getting clues that she doesn’t want to be around me in front of others. Alone, we spend lots of time together. As long as it’s just me, Liz seems to very much enjoy a friendship of laughing, drinking, long phone calls, gossip, updates about men and even the give and take of shoulders to cry on. But not in groups of people that she likes, or wants to impress. Is she embarrassed by me?

And then there’s the digs and attacks. Sometimes it seems like Liz needs to take me down a notch in front of others, especially guys.

Granted, I’m not everybody’s cup of tea. I get that. But it’s hurtful when you’re company is good enough in private but not in public.

I was pissed. And hurt. I started to think that Liz wasn’t on my side, when it really counted. I thought maybe it was time to get some distance. Take a break.

Of course, the chicken shit that I am, I didn’t confront Liz or talk to her like a grown-up. I just decided to ignore her a little. You know like I do with a man when they’ve pissed me off.

That evening she called and left a voice message, giddy and beaming about a coffee date she had just had. I texted her my congrats the next day. She texted something else. I replied with one word.

By then, the monster was winning. A couple of weekends ago, I had one of the worst depressive episodes I’ve ever experienced. So, it didn’t take much to fall back down. And I was falling, so I gave me boss the old “family emergency” excuse and I went home.

Amy texted me. She had spoken to Liz who knew something was wrong. Amy told her that I was upset about being left out. (I fucking told you this was high school bullshit, don’t look at me like that.)

Liz informed Amy that indeed, Jules intentionally left me out because Jules didn’t like me.

Apparently one night at the Blue Moon, a group of us were casually gathered around some steps when Jules began telling everyone about her best friend who might come for a visit. Her best friend, who she “loves to death,” sleeps with everything that moves, including whoever Jules might be seeing at the time. She told us about a time said friend was behind the fence at the Blue Moon giving a stranger a blow job. She told us that she had to warn her boyfriend that said best friend would probably try to sleep with him, but you know she “loves her to death.”

Now, I’m not one to judge a woman’s choices when it comes to sexuality or promiscuity……but your best friend’s boyfriend? Really. So, I called her out on it. I challenged the sincerity of such a friendship. I must have gone so far as to warn Jules that she should probably not bring said friend around me because God knows what I might say to her. Of course, I was full of shit when I said that. But I guess Jules didn’t know that.

And that didn’t sit too well with her, so I’m on her shit list. Her “let’s leave Marie out of the big party that everybody’s invited to…included the woman who hates me” list.

And that’s ok. I get it. Everyone has the right to not like someone. Everyone has the right to have only those people they want to in their homes. Those are sacred rights.

But it’s Liz’s reaction that’s hitting me in the gut.

If Larry told me that he was having a big party, inviting all the people that we hang out with, the extended circles of cliques and intentionally leaving Liz out because…you know she said something one day at a bar and I kinda didn’t like it……I would tell him that it’s not ok to invite all of Lafayette except Liz, that she would obviously find out and be hurt and that if he couldn’t include my girl, he could count me out too.

But she didn’t do that. She didn’t have my back.

Is it possible that Liz loves me like a sister but doesn’t like me?

Or maybe I’m just an obnoxious, raging bitch with serious mental health issues.

Either way…….being the target of the mean girls sucks!

I want to crawl under a rock.

Maybe it is time to move to Portland. If I move, can I become a new person? Can I pretend to be one of those popular, cool, nice, involved, successful people and then become one?

Or will I just repeat the pattern of mediocrity and pissing people off and find myself in a shitty apartment on a cold rainy night, watching netflix and wondering where everybody is?